Gambling News

Caesars Sent Promo E-Mails to Addictive Players Due to Software Issue

- November 12, 2014 By Oliver Young -

Caesars Interactive Entertainment was fined $10,000 by the DGE

It might have been intentionally according to some people, but the people behind Caesars Interactive Entertainment in New Jersey claim that due to a back-end software issue they sent promotional emails to addictive gamblers that are on the do-not-sent e-mail list.

Reports say that Caesars Entertainment sent promotions during a three and a half month period to 250 problem gamblers who have identified themselves as compulsive online players and are trying to avoid such temptations like special promotional offers by adding themselves on this special list.

The software glitch occurred between February 16th and May 28th. The complaint was filed on October 6th and four days later it was signed by DGE Director David Rebuck.

Caesars Entertainment Fined

Ever since New Jersey legalized online gambling, which was about a year ago, the US state hasn’t had to fine anyone for not complying with the state’s igaming laws and regulations. But the official press of Atlantic City reported that Caesars Entertainment was fined $10,000 by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) because of this software glitch incident. The other two US states that have also legalized Internet gambling are Delaware and Nevada. Moreover, by the end of 2020, 20 more US states are expected to legalize online gambling.

As part of the igaming regulations in New Jersey, online gambling sites and operators must allow players to exclude themselves from a gambling site and ban themselves from playing games. This is one of the security measures that must be implemented by operators to prevent problem gambling. This means that the player must be self-aware of his gambling addiction and motivated to take action and stop gambling. However, this is an avenue which has worked for many gamblers on websites throughout the world.

Caesars Entertainment allows players to ban themselves from gambling temporary or for one, two, three or five months and to do this, players can self-exclude themselves from the cashier or contact someone from the player support service.

A problem gambler can also permanently ban himself from the online gambling site and he will also be excluded and not allowed to gamble at all Caesars land based properties, even those that don’t offer gambling products. This status cannot be reversed once it is in place, therefore, players that want to take a break from gambling should choose the temporary ban.

Commenting on the software glitch incident, the vice president of Caesars Seth Palansky said in a statement: “The problem that caused this incident to target addictive players is now fixed and we had no incidents of this type before. We want to assure people that this is not a deliberate mistake and we didn’t intentionally target these players, but it is all simply a back-end software issue that failed to properly scrub certain e-mails.”

Some Believe It Was Intentional

There are some people who believe that it was Caesars Entertainment itself that didn’t take the right people off the list. Reportedly, this is not the first time for Caesars to make similar mistake. The company was fined $3,000 in May because it didn’t prominently include the compulsive gambling hotline, 1-800-GAMBLER, on its billboards.